playing in the scrap heap

I was going to post my bi-monthly knitting report but I hadn’t taken any photos before I put three shawls into soak for blocking. Then I remembered that the man was coming to hang our new curtains tomorrow and probably wouldn't appreciate having to walk around my knitting while it was blocking on the living room floor. So the knitting continues to soak and blocking will have to wait until after the new curtains are hung!

I haven’t done any sewing at all for nearly three weeks, due to an unexpected trip north, then house guests during a four-day conference, followed by a planned trip to spend a few days at the beach with my mother, sister and some of her family, plus DD and the Grandboys. For the past four days I have been almost unable to move due to the pain in my gut which I had hoped was a 48-hour bug but obviously isn’t!

I had planned to sew yesterday and today but it hasn’t happened. As Lindsey, from Sew Many Yarns, points out in this post: It's very confusing when I haven't worked on a project for a while and it seems to take an age to get my brain back into gear.

I know just what she means. I was on a roll for the first three weeks of September and achieved a lot more than I had planned. But now that I’ve stopped, I have trouble remembering what I was doing!
Let’s take a trip through the month:

By the fourth of the month I had finished my Something New project – a scrappy orange braid made from forty six 2.5” x 7” scraps. Orange was the colour of the month for September at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy blog.

But I quickly found that it’s easier to make two braids than one so I made a yellow one! Yellow was the colour for June so I’m just a few months late (nothing unusual in that)! Then I made a green one and a red one, and a blue one and part of a purple one. You can see them all here on my last post.
So that’s where I’m up to with that project. I plan to take the completed braids to class next Monday with some sashing options and start putting them together into a quilt top. I would have liked to have finished the purple braid before then but it seems unlikely!

I cut way more orange and yellow strips than I needed so I found myself wondering what to do with the excess. I decided to sew them together in sets of three and square them off. I could have used them as rail fence blocks but our quilting group gets a lot of those so I had a long think about what I could do with the squares. I finally settled on a disappearing nine patch quilt. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough neutral background fabric to make a nine patch with all the same sized squares so I modified the design so that I could use what I have (that's the challenge of working from donated stash). Here are the resultant blocks before the nine patch disappeared.
 
Here are the blocks after cutting.

And here is the quilt top on the classroom design wall (I don't have one at home yet!)

While all that was going on I also pieced the fourth foundation block for my row-by-row Pretty in Pink quilt and started piecing the tumblers into what will be a ‘honeycomb’ pattern.

My leader and ender project involves sewing 2.5” squares in pairs of a light fabric and a dark fabric with the idea of making a Jacob’s Ladder quilt ‘some day’. So far I’ve made 60 four-patch units; I need 100 before I can move on to the half-square-triangle units.

The rest of my time in the 'sewing room' was about getting organised. Until recently, I have stored all my scraps – strips, rectangles, squares, triangles and odd shapes – unironed, in plastic shopping bags, by colour. These are some of my blue scraps after I started ironing!

Throughout August and September, I had been ironing many of my scraps and have realised that I am more likely to use them if they are stored by shape and size rather than colour.

I’m not really sure at this stage how that will pan out – I think that I will only keep odd shaped pieces and pieces smaller than 2.5” inches in colour groups and use those as the basis of future Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. All other scraps will be sorted according to shape; and If I have a lot of any particular size and shape I’ll store those in their own separate container. Obviously this is still a work in progress and there’ll be other posts about this as I see how it works! At the moment I have small plastic trays of scraps and little piles of scraps all over our family room (which is also my sewing room).

And, now that it’s October, the colours of the month are brown and black. I’m thinking I might give this a miss; not because I don’t like these colours but because I already have way too many projects on the go and no plans to start another! WM and I are going away from 21st to 31st October so that only gives me ten days more of this month. With WM home every day on annual leave, I doubt there’ll be much time for sewing at all!

So now, forgive me while I remind myself where I’m at:
Rainbow Braid quilt
-- finish the purple braid
-- choose some candidates for sashing fabric
-- take finished braids to class, audition sashing, trim braids, cut and attach sashing
Pretty in Pink row-by-row quilt
-- make at least two more foundation pieced blocks
-- finish piecing the tumblers
Scrappy Strippy (disappearing nine patch) quilt
-- make backing
-- baste, quilt, label and bind
Jacob’s Ladder quilt
-- finish piecing four patch blocks
-- cut 5” blocks in light and dark printed fabrics for HST
-- sew HST and trim to size
scrap sorting and storage
-- make a decision about how I want to store my scraps (by size/shape or by colour)
-- bring the bookcase we were going to give away back into the sewing room
-- store the scraps and give WM back his sofa (not that he's had a chance to sit on it since we moved!)

Well, that’s where I’m at.
What about you? What are you working on at the moment?

lest you think I no longer sew

My last few posts have been heavy with knitting, which is my primary stitching craft. However, most of my followers are quilters so I thought it was about time I talked about my quilting-related projects!

I have not yet touched my “Something Old” project for this month but I have big plans for tomorrow!

I have been stitching. I have finished piecing and cutting all the pink pieces I need for my Scrappy Drunkard’s Path row; and am about halfway through the purple piecing. I don’t have any photos to show you of the pieced segments themselves but this photo shows most of the scraps left over from making the pink segments.

Some of the pieces I have already trimmed and started sewing in an improvised way into the beginnings of some blocks.

Here are the purple pieces that I have so far – they’ll be turned into improv blocks next.
This is supposed to be my “leader and ender” project but I get carried away and keep stitching, pressing and trimming to the exclusion of other activities!

I was going through my stash of “"donated fabrics” to prepare for making a bargello table runner. My drawer of green fabrics is almost impossible to open or close. I couldn't find enough “width of fabric” pieces in there to make my bargello but I decided it was time to deal with the shopping bag full of smallish pieces. On Saturday and again this afternoon I pressed what seemed like hundreds of pieces. If the piece was larger than my new scrap basket, I folded it and added it to the drawer with the larger pieces. This is what my ironing board looked like after I finished pressing all the smaller pieces.

This is the basket containing the odd shaped pieces, the ‘bricks’, the squares and the triangles.
The pile of “strips” (anything much longer than wide) will be sorted by widths. There's no way that pile will fit in my new basket.
   
The shallow basket is supposed to fit in the drawer on top of the larger pieces of pressed and folded fabric. There’s no way that I can close the drawer like that. I need to use some green fabric – soon!
The other thing that I got started today was my “Something New” project: a blue bargello table runner. I have designed it myself so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. It is being made from donated fabrics plus a couple from my own stash and will end up on the fund-raising table at the Airing of the Quilts next year. I hope someone likes it enough to buy it. Here are the nine fabrics my teacher and I chose for the project. The one on the left is a pale blue damask, a lovely fabric that doesn’t photograph well.

So that’s what I've been been working on in July; most of it being done in the last few days after sorting all that yarn.

How’s your month going? Are you meeting your goals or are those of you living in the northern hemisphere enjoying summer too much while I freeze here? ;-)

works in progress

A couple of days ago I was working in my sewing room and thinking about all the different projects I had going on so it seemed time to share them.

I describe a WIP as anything I have worked on in the last three months. With the exception of the Hearts quilt,  every project I will share with you today has been worked on in the last four weeks.

Why don't I start with my knitting projects? That is how this blog started after all!

The older of the two knitting WiPs is a pair of socks I cast on in October. I knitted the first sock to the heel turning then stopped -- turning heels requires concentration which, for me, means solitude. Last weekend, as I waited for the workshop I was tutoring to start, I began turning the heels (and put them away when I got to the part where concentration was really needed). For those who care about such things, I use an hourglass heel (from Lynne Vogel's Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook) as my "go to" heel. It was the first heel I learned to make and, even though it was difficult to teach in my workshop in 2012, is still the heel I prefer to knit.

 

My other knitting project, which was started on Christmas Eve and is now too big to work on in the current hot, humid weather, is my own design. I've called it Nouveaux Log Cabin. It was inspired by the Moderne Baby Blanket (from "Mason-Dixon Knitting" by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne). It is based on Fibonacci numbers, given that each section is based on the numbers 1, 2 or 3 -- 1 being fifteen garter stitch ridges. The finished blanket should be approximately 72" x 42". I have worked the sections out to get these dimensions and have the same number of sections across the blanket as down its length.  I particularly like the look of the one garter ridge done in white at the beginning of each section.

I have worked on three different quilting projects in the past four weeks; four in the past three months.

The Hearts quilt is the only project in this post that I haven't touched in the last four weeks. I need to make a decision about how I'm going to quilt it and get to it! It remains 30 disconnected blocks.

The project that has had the most attention this week is Violet and Friends quilt. I made the crumb blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (SoScrappy blog) during 2011 and 2012 but only started putting the blocks together into a quilt top last month.

This week I have been working on making the backing. It never ceases to amaze me how much time it takes to press fabric, cut strips, join strips, press seams, pin strips to blocks, sew strips to blocks and press seams. It took me all my sewing time on Tuesday (several hours) to do the above (and press the whole flimsy now that I have a new iron which gets hot enough to do the job properly!) and all I added were four 2” white borders to the flimsy seen above, and two long strips to the backing panel.

In class last week, I finished a block for the Sampler Quilt I've been making (on and off) for a year. It took me the better part of three hours to finish about half a block! I'm not the world's fastest patch-worker, that's for sure! This block is called Weathervane. It looks very tricky but really, it's just a fancy nine-patch (as are all the blocks in the sampler some of which you can see here).

My newest project in terms of deciding what to do is really the first of these four to have got started. Back in 2011, before I started classes with my current teacher, DD and I used to attend all-day Saturday classes once a month. At one of these workshops, I learned several ways to make half square triangles (I documented it here and here). when I read about the Relaxing Robin (SewUQuilt2 blog), I decided to make one of these orphan blocks my Relaxing Robin project. I won't go into too much detail here, this will get its own post later this month.

I have one hand-stitching WiP – my Dutch Cap Hexies. This is a very long term project given these are 1.5” hexies and diamonds I’m sewing together. This is what I’ve done so far (not the final layout):

 

I have a pile of “hexie triads” ready to go, and over the last few days have basted all these diamonds (I’ve run out of papers so I have to wait for LQS to get some more). Plenty of sewing to be going on with.

Finally, my newest baby, brought into the world on 12 February: when finished it will be a large pin cushion done in candlewicking using colonial knots and some stem stitch on homespun with perle cotton.

What about you?

What projects are you working on?

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced blog and Yarn Along at Small Things blog.

Edited to add that I am also linking up to Hexie Weekend at a Quilting Reader's Garden blog.

I have also joined the EPP QAL group on Flickr. 

stitching with a machine

What's that? Oh yes, I’m procrastinating! I should be moving fabric back into the sewing room but this easier. But as soon as I’m done here, I’ll get to it!

I haven’t done any sewing at home in weeks but I have taken my sewing machine to class on the last two Mondays. That means I am back to working on my “Sampler Blocks”. It takes about three hours in class to complete one of these 12.5” blocks – that is: pressing, cutting, piecing, pressing, piecing, pressing, piecing, pressing. It sounds like a long time but in between there is chatting, consultation with the teacher, chatting, a cup of tea, chatting, goodies to eat, chatting, moving around a cramped classroom, chatting… well, you get the picture.

I’m not sure which, if any, of these blocks I have shown before so here are the five I have completed since (ahem) the beginning of the year. Of course I’ve been working on other things – a fair bit of hand piecing, making my project bag, basting and binding the Earth and Sky Quilt; to name a few. After all, how many of you work on only one project at a time? :-)

So here they are, in the order I made them (I think)

Domino

Oregon Trail

Cajun Spice

Pathways

Blocks and Star

I think I’d like to see "Pathways" as a whole quilt.

Do you have a favourite?

one of those days

You know the kind I mean.

Where you seem to take two steps forward and one step back.

Where more ripping takes place than progress.

I started out with these:

When I first started at Caring Hearts Community Quilters, no-ne told me what size to make the quilts, just “single bed toppers”. I didn’t know what that meant but then I remember that the wraps I knit were also single bed toppers and they are 40” x 70” (28 ten-inch square in a 4 columns, 7 rows configuration).

And so I pieced this quilt top in the same way. It came out 44” x 77”. I pieced the backing to be two inches larger all round – 48” x 81”. 
There it stopped. I never got around to quilting it.

A few months passed and I found out that the quilt size required was approximately 54” x 64”.

Clearly this quilt was too narrow and too long. I have known that for several months but have only just got to this UFO.

It should have been no problem. Remove the bottom row. Make two more squares. Cut some more sashing. Put it back together.

Cut the back down and find a way to make it wider. Ah yes, ten inches wider. Three sashings at 2” each plus a four inch panel of the main fabric – just as well I still had some of the fabric in my stash.
~~~~~~
I decided to work on the backing first – it’s more straight forward. First cut it down to 70”. Then unpick two 70” seams to remove the pieced panel.

Cut 2.5” strips WOF (width of fabric). Join the strips to make sashing 70” long. Sew the first sashing to the pieced panel. Oops! Should have used pins – unpick the whole lot! Re-sew.

Pin the second sashing to the other side of the pieced panel and sew. Good job. Uh-oh! What’s this? The sashing has been sewn on upside-down so that the joins are facing the outside. Unpick 70” of stitching. Re-sew.

Iron and cut two four inch strips from the main fabric. Join to make a panel. Sew sashing to panel. Perhaps I should have used pins? Err. I think I’ll get away with it!

Join two narrow panels to each other. Sloppy! Should have used pins! Rip. Re-sew!

Sew the narrower of the two side pieces to the stitched panel. Haven’t you learnt yet? Use pins! Rip. Pin. Re-sew! Pin last piece of backing to the panel piece, sew!

Backing finished – go and have a late lunch and read for a couple of hours!
~~~~~~
Ah, feeling better. Time to face the quilt top.

Rip the bottom row. Assess the situation. Find some appropriate scraps. Fortunately I have some strips of three of the fabrics that are used in other blocks. Measure the original blocks. Cut strips. Iron. Cut more strips. Sew strips in pairs. Join pairs (Look, mum, no pins!). Continue until blocks are made. Press, measure for size. Oops, too small.

Find another strip for each block. Rip one seam in each block. Add new strip. Press. Trim to size.

Cut 2” strips WOF to make sashing. Cut two 9” strips. Pin. Sew to blocks. Measure. Cut two 11” strips. Pin. Sew to blocks. Attach one block to the top and one block to the bottom of the four blocks that had previously been removed from the quilt top (because they have been made from the almost the same fabrics and need to be separated). Join sashing strips. Pin to side of blocks. Sew. Press.

Make another sashing strip. Add to other side using pins. Sew. Press.

Collect rest of quilt top from the family room. Look at it. Shake head. Look again! Realise the last sashing added wasn’t needed. Rip off newly sewn sashing.

Pin completed block column to rest of quilt top. Sew the last seam (finally). Begin pressing! What’s this ?!*^~*?

Can you see the problem here? Look closely at the top two block on the right and the two below them.

Leave it in tears. Go back to book!

getting organised on <s>paper</s> tablet

I have so many stitching projects "in progress" (read "started but going nowhere") that I have been feeling overwhelmed which leads to the easy option - fall back on the knitting and concentrate on one project! In this post in June and in this post in July, I listed many (but not all) of my WIPs. However, just knowing how many projects I had on the go wasn't helping me get moving on most of them any more than focusing on just one knitting project will see my sewing completed!

Privately, I tried listing all the things I needed to do to bring some of the projects to completion but that, as you can probably imagine, just made things even more overwhelming. Then, in the first hours of daylight last Thursday morning the solution came to me. What if I list each project and just the next task that needs to be done on that project? I could cope with just one thing, the next thing, couldn't I?

After trying my notebook app (which I love for taking notes and storing PDF files), a couple of spread-sheets and  the built in reminder app on my iPad, and rejecting databases as too complicated, I decided to type "lists" into the search box in the App Store. I found lots of interesting things, and even tried a couple but the app I have finally settled on is simply called "Errands" and, so far, it does what I need it to do.

It's a full application, not a lite version (another app I tried would only let me list 30 items in total). With this app, I was able to list more than 30 items which I chose to put in two folders -- "works in progress" (meaning I had done something towards starting the project beyond planning) and "projects to go" which are projects I hope/plan to start soon.

The app had a place for me to write the name of the project and some details if needed. I was able to assign  it a high, medium or low priority, and where necessary, set the date (and time) for its completion.

Then I was able to sort my projects according to priority, due date or just list them in alphabetical order (as seen here).

Or I could manually sort them according to my own personal criteria.

I could put a little star to tell me which projects I want to focus on and even have the app put an auto-star on the project for me (I have set mine to add the task/project to the focus tasks fourteen days before the due date but there are other choices). This then feeds into a folder called “focus” which is just what I need – something to help me focus on one task (not project) at a time. How can I not see what I need to be working on when it’s this clear?

I spent an hour or so on Friday morning setting due dates for my projects – this will help as they get closer and the app sorts them for me! Items like donation blankets and warm clothing don't need to be finished until the end of April. Likewise, all the quilts for Caring Hearts Community Quilting Group need to be ready to go by the end of March.

Each task can even have its own checklist within the notes section. Here are my notes for my Christmas Tree embroidery #2. These are the two thinks I need to do to complete this embroidery.

If I wanted to, I could have an alarm to alert me to the fact that a task is now due -- and there is a large choice of different alarm sounds! I could even choose what time I wanted to receive that alert!

The app has a logbook which records when tasks have been completed so I can look back and see how much I have achieved (or not) in a given time period! As you can see, when I took this photo I had only completed one task, and that was on Thursday afternoon – but give me a break, I only found the app and installed it on Thursday afternoon!

And the logbook tasks can be used to create another task for the same project. So, for example, I write that my next task is to cut and iron the binding for an I Spy quilt. I complete the task and check the box. I can then copy that project to a new task in the folder of my choice and change the task to machine-sew the binding to the quilt and set up a new set of time limits and priorities (if I want to).

I admit that it did take me quite a few hours to try different many ways of recording the projects I have underway and the next task needed for each of them but that was because I tried many different ways until I found the right app for me. This sounds like time-wasting but in the end, it should save me time. I like this kind of organisation – it helps me to see clearly what I need to focus on!

The only thing I would change about this app is I would love to be able to assign a different date to the next task and the due date for completion of the project. But this is not what the app is designed for so I’m asking a lot!

The app is very easy to use and the set up is so clear. The left side of the screen lists the folders available and the right side of the screen shows the contents (in my case, individual projects or tasks) in each or all of the folders. At the time this photo was taken, I had the “works in progress” folder open.

All in all, I'm very happy with the app so far (at the time of writing this post I had only been using it for about 24 hours). I'm not sure that David Mandell, the app writer, had craft projects in mind when he wrote the app but it's a comprehensive way to keep track of what has been done and what needs to be done and when! Best of all, it's a full app for free!

Thanks, David! I really appreciate your expertise. I, for one, would have no idea how to go about writing an app!